September Contest: Gossip

[Scoops]

@ all
I was thinkin about the next contest......Hmmmmmmm.....how bout everybody does a remake of one of their own tunes submitted to a past contest. No, not just a remix. Something like in a whole different genre. Just a thought

what about the people who haven't been in a contest?

The people that are new to the contest would have to post 2 completely different versions of one of their tunes. Kind of like having to do 2 tunes in a month

-S

[shrikant]

OK, let's skip next month, 'cose there's no way we can beat Shrikant's Twinkle Twinkle submission !!!

Oh dear ! Tears of laughter in my eyes, but I see similarities in Andalusian (South-Spain) and Indian singing.

Wow,

Max... .. .

shrikant, lol! thanks for posting that. (lol) (edit: the singing is actually quite good)

The piece has 4 distinct styles/diction of rendering the same tune in the South Indian classical music mode. Obviously the lady in Green Saree (dress)is good at South Indian classical singing. For the sake of the children she is rendering the lines in the following languages (flavor and diction only )1.Tamil 2.Kannada 3.Malayalam 4. Punjabi.In that order. For a south Indian it has greater impact because we immediately catch up with the diction of the lines.It is often used in popular culture to make fun of the speakers of these languages for the peculiarities of their diction.(Punjabi is not a South Indian style.But a popular folk of North India)

In between the lady does AArohanam (Ascending order) and Avarohanam (Descending Order) of the notes from the Indian classical music. SA.Re. Ga.Ma,Pa,Dha,Ni,SA (Western equivalents of C D E F G A B C in that order.

This might help in understanding and enjoying it better.

[nikp2000]

one more

alienxx not kids play
i like the interplay between the frenetic drums and the slower theme statement. good mix of elements, but the drinding guitar sound in the back kind of muddied the mix.

_

[folderol]

I was thinkin about the next contest...... No, not just a remix. Something like in a whole different genre. Just a thought

Twinkle Twinkle little star.

Priceless!

P.S.
You owe me a keyboard

[Laguna Rising]

@ all
I was thinkin about the next contest......Hmmmmmmm.....how bout everybody does a remake of one of their own tunes submitted to a past contest. No, not just a remix. Something like in a whole different genre. Just a thought

what about the people who haven't been in a contest?

The people that are new to the contest would have to post 2 completely different versions of one of their tunes. Kind of like having to do 2 tunes in a month

-S

Fair enough

Cheers

[offthewall]

Final part 5

ChuckEJesus_ROCKPAPERSCISSORS
Really like the combination of chidren's instruments, and the song … harmonica is particularly tasty … but I don't like that annoying out of tune bass thingy. Spoils a good song, for me.

AlienXXX_Not Kids Play
Superb drum part and a memorable riff, but too many ups and downs of levels to make it interesting.


Whew .... I managed them all ... and I thought I wouldn't be able to do it

Now for the hard part ....... voting


James

[Laguna Rising]

Chuck E. Jesus - Rock Paper Scissors
Notable vocals on this one. Apart from all those toy instruments, it has a strong child-ish feel, and it adds value and coherence. Very good.

ALienXXX - Not Kids Play
Suspended 'Kitr' melody turns into a darker thing, good aggressive guitars and solid rhythm, although the general feel of this track remains rather unresolved.

[Chuck E. Jesus]

[quote="Chuck E. Jesus
The people that are new to the contest would have to post 2 completely different versions of one of their tunes. Kind of like having to do 2 tunes in a month

-S

[shrikant]

I was thinkin about the next contest...... No, not just a remix. Something like in a whole different genre. Just a thought

Twinkle Twinkle little star.

Priceless!

P.S.
You owe me a keyboard

folderol,A virtual keyboard has been sent to your last known address.Please be there when the consignment arrives.In fact I owe liquor bottles (spurious ones)to several people for not doing the reviews. I hope to send those,shortly. I have been very busy due to my international business dealings with a guy of Belgian origin.

nikp, thanks for the vote.

[Chuck E. Jesus]

Final part 5

but I don't like that annoying out of tune bass thingy. Spoils a good song, for me.

i can assure you the bass was in tune...my atonal warble, now that's a different story

[AlienXXX]

nikp2000, offthewall, Laguna Rising,

Thanks for the reviews, in particular in face of my last minute submission.
Oh, well... It didn't go to bad considering it is the first time I enter such contests.

Initially I though about throwing together a bunch of kids instruments, but I gave up the idea in the end. Not only it would involve a significant amount of sampling and tunning, I feared the end result would sound too "tiny" and "plastic".
I then took the approach of using something that could fuse very different sounds together and develop in an unexpected way.
The style of the piece does remain undefined, true. Although that is mostly by defenition: I did not want the "heavy metal" the "rubber band guitar" or anything else to become too dominant.
It was also a bit of a jump in the dark for me,as heavy metal guitars is not usually my thing. What the heck... be bold!

Listening to everyone else's submissions at the moment.
My 10 reviews comming up soon!

[folderol]

Hmmm. 10 reviews

I think maybe people should regard this as a minimum - there is no maximum

[AlienXXX]

Hmmm. 10 reviews

I think maybe people should regard this as a minimum - there is no maximum

Absolutely !

It is my humble oppinion that everyone that has gone to the trouble of entering a submission deserves a review.
The number of participants is not huge, so it is perfectly feasible to post a review of each one.

I will probaly post the minimum 10 reviews first, while I continue to go throught the other entries. Voting is easier than reviewing because you can make your decision based simply on personal taste.
I think the 10 reviews idea is great and everyone will get a lot more out of the competition this way. Not just the people giving feedback but also the people giving feedback.

I mean. Take me as an example... I (a newbie) may be posting a review of a track made from someone who has participated in hundreds of competitions before. People in this situation may feel shy to give any feedback. But if it is part of the rules then everybody knows they need to give and take feedback.

Also, critical listening is a great way to learn and we often don't do enough of it.

All in all, I think I went about it in the right way: if I had started by reviewiing others' work first, given the quality of most of the submissions, I would have probably just decided I was not up to the required level.

[farlukar]

Oddbod does Punk. Knockman does grunge, Offthewall does reggae. EV does New Age

Will you be assigning styles then?

[AlienXXX]

Dear All,

I hope to have time to review all the submissions.
I have done the first 11 (in order of submission date). See below:

1
rifftrax
"Beginning of the End"
Used a toy flute.

My Review
Ambience start followed by a nice upbeat rythm.
This is a track that has a lot of texture throughout.
Nice ambience part at 1m30s with some deep synth sweeps in the background. Really nice.
The kid instrument was a flute and blends very well with the rest of the instruments and the ambient of the track.

There are some major flute parts at around 0m40s.
A very good, well thought out and well accomplished track !!!

---------------------------------------------------------------

2
mrblitz000
"Babushka Baby"
Toy Piano VSTI.

My Review
Music starts with low-fi strings that seem to be slightly out of tune. I like this bit.
After about 0m21s an electric guitar plays over the initial mellody but does not exactly blend in with it. That is the end of the intro.
The vocal has a telephone effect applied to it, which maintans some of the low-fi feel of the track At about 1m30s the toy piano breaks in. The break in is a bit forced but works better than the break-out.
At 2m44s the toy piano breaks in again and finishes the track.
This is a track that I find difficult to review because it is not a stle that I would normally listen to.
Initially I thought that the toy piano does not blend in. But on second analysis, I am not sure the other elements of the track blen particularly well either There seem to be too many things always happening at the same
time and the various elements do not seem to want to go in the same direction. I believe this is intentional, though.

----------------------------------------------------------------

3
beanpole
"What Time Is Love?"
used a sampled recorder

My Review
There are some portions where the vocal seems to go slightly out of tune.
The integration of the toy instrument is convincing with the spirit and mellody of the track and I think it works well. The flute also plays a significant enough role in the song, in my oppinion.
I would have thought that integrating the flute with the accoustic guitar would have presented specific challenges as both instruments have significant content in the high frequencies. I do not feel any clash there and
both instruments can be clearly heard in the mix so this point was well accomplished.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

4
farlukar
Islington
featuring precisionsound's cathedral toy organ

My Review
Starts with some intersting metallic like percussions and some stomping noises followd by a scream.
Intro ends at 0m24s and a metal guitar and metal drums come in.
The guitar is very well achieved. and blends very well with the metal drums and the continuation of the percussion sounds.
The confusion about the percussion sound being the actual "cathedral toy organ" has been pointed by others in their reviews and this is a point that could penalize the track during review or voting. Because the actual sound of the toy instrument does not match what one would expect from its name. It would have been nice if there was a comment on the submission post explaining this.
This is an absolutely brilliant track and would be a shame if any lack of clarity on what the toy instrument was results in a lower score than what it deserves.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

5
offthewall
"My Lodging's On the Cold Ground"
Uses a whistle, a triangle and a rhythm clapper.

My review
This is a pure accoustic track.
Excellent execution, no doubt!
All elements blend in very, very well. If I had not been told I would not believe it involved any kids instruments

at all. The whole thing sounds very professional and very serious.
An excellent example of the accoustic genre.
Should also get an extra point for a duration of EXACTLY 3m00s LOL.
---------------------------------------------------------------

6
jenderton
"Dragon Fodder"
No mention of the toy instrument on the submission post!

My Review
Starts with an reverberant intro. Many sounds and wispery voices blended together. But actually this is not the intro, the whole track is a purely ambient noise track.
Artificial speak takes over as the dominand feature from 1m13s. There is alot a repetitive strumming of an harp(?).
Someow the robotic voice and the metallic repetitive sound from the harp reminded me of the cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica TV series!

Again this is a track that is very difficult to review and also judge against other tracks. Unless there happen to be many such ambient style entries.
This is a track that can missinterpreted due to being out of context. If you imagine this as the soundtrack on a sci-fi movie featuring eveil robots and mines with slave workers it would probably work very well.

I am assuming the toy instrument is some sort of speak-and-spell or other toy featuring the artificial voices... (searching throught the Gossip threat later confirmed this).
Trying not to penalize the track from the difference (originality!) in style, I must say that it does get a repetitive. Although ambient tracks tend to evolve slowly and 3m is normaly too short for this type of track.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

7
folderol
"No More Time For Toys"
Magical Music Box
Cathedral Toy Organ
Cimealong
Wooden spoon hitting a saucepan covered with a dishcloth

My Review
This is a track that works well. It is certainly well orchestrated and balanced. It has a very childish and innocent and fluffy feel to it.
The only minus point for me is that I find it a bit predictable: this is exactly how I would expect a track made with toys would sound like and feel like. I mean, to that extent it is perfect: it exudes "toy shop" or "toy room" from every note.
My personal preference would be instead for a component of unnexpected. But this is, of course, a matter of personal preference, technically this is a very good track.
---------------------------------------------------------------

8
Echo Voodoo
"In the lonely hills"
Ukulele, tambourine, shaker, and plastic ocarina

My Review
Good mellody, although some of the shaker and tambourine parts do not seem to blend as well as they could. It seems to be a result of the timming being slightly off at points and also these rhythmic elements being too promiunent in the track, wich enphasizes the slight miss-timmings.
A bit os use of reverb, EQ and certainly slightly lowering the volume of these elements relative to the mellodic components of the track would have worked better in my oppinion.
I think better EQing and mixing would have turned this track to an absolute star. The ukelele and ocarina parts are very beautiful. Nice Andes feel to the track.
------------------------------------------------------------------

9
liqih
Dancing The Dreams
tiny xylophone and toy piano samples from freesound.org

My review
The starting sequence reminds me of Vangelis, but then develops a distinct indian flavor to the percussion.
The percussion work is absolutely awesome! Is that a bicycle bell in there!?
The srings really remind me of Vangelis...
The only criticism is that with all that percussion activity going on I could not realise how much the toy piano and xylophone contribute to the music. Probably my fault that I would need to listen to the track a few more times, perhaps through headphones, to try to isolate the individual samples.
This is a fantastic track and will certainly get my vote.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

10
Barnadine
"The End of the World"
With toy piano and sampled Speak & Spell™.

My review
Love the intro!
Fantastic lyrics! The mellody and rhythm really suit the song. Perfect integration of the toy instruments into the song. Perfect execution.
The only thing I would like to know is if the lyrics where pre-existing or if they were also developed specifically for this contest.
Flawless !!!
Man I am a fan already and I am copying this to my mp3 player !
---------------------------------------------------------------------

11
mvrasseli
"Balada do Alfredo"
PVC whistle
Also various child and baby sounds
instrument.

My review
This is another composition that is not in one of my favourite musical genres. My comment may be of limited value as I may not appreciate all the nuances.
I like this piece nevertheless. The piano has a lighthearted mellody and the whistle really gives it the "child touch".
On top of that I would say that the additions of the child playing sounds and baby laughs really take this piece to the next level. Although this piece has mainly a "classical" design, there is a lot of originality to it. I think it fits perfectly the purpose of the contest.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

MORE TO COME.
STAY TUNED !!!